I am an evil giraffe. Who no longer blogs about politics.

Ben Domenech, in the process of noting the President’s fondness for repeatedly – and incorrectly* – using ‘silly season’ as a descriptor for elections:

In most of these incidents, the president was responding to questions about his supposed “elitism” or some question of inappropriate activity — but the use of the term undercuts the message he’s trying to send. Instead of dealing with the real question, the line suggests that elections are themselves silly, and it’s when those infuriating little people with their rallies, signs and complaints aren’t paying attention (when politicians aren’t earning votes) that the real work gets done.

Ben goes on to suggest that perhaps the President has grown bored of having to convince said ‘little people’ of anything, which is no doubt a searing indictment of Ben’s inherent racism for even suggesting the possibility. And probably also a searing indictment of my inherent racism for thinking that the sentence could just as easily be ended after ‘bored’ and still have semantic value. Marvelous new post-racial America we’ve been brought to under this current administration, ain’t it?

Moe Lane

*While I agree that the phrase has been stretched out recently, it originated in the newspaper industry as a description of the summer months, which were noteworthy for being slow news months (and not coincidentally, months when the legislature was not in session).